Privacy, Information,
and Communication Technology

E59.1200.007 Integrating Liberal Arts

Monday 11AM-1:30PM

Instructor: Helen Nissenbaum,
Department of Culture and Communication

On
January 25, 1999, Scott McNealy, chief executive officer of Sun Microsystems,
told a group of reporters and analysts on January 25, 1999, at the launch of
Sun’s new Jini technology, “You have zero privacy anyway, get over it.”

McNealy’s comment reflects what many people believe,
namely that technology, in particular, new media -- computers, information
technology, and digital electronic networks -- have dramatically and
irrevocably diminished our privacy. The picture, in fact, is far more complex.
This course is a critical study of the multi-faceted relationship between
privacy and technology.We will study
technical innovations as well as new applications of old technologies that have
caused alarm, from photography, cheap printing, and wire-taps to databases,
video surveillance cameras, biometrics, and the Internet; we will also take
note of technologies that have been offered as “antidotes.” We will study the
people, practices, institutions, and vested interests that have supported the
application of these technologies to observe people, store information about
them, and hold them accountable for their actions. We will review prominent
theories of privacy, contemporary privacy policy, privacy law, and privacy as a
social, legal, and moral value.

Course
Readings:

A Course
Reader may be purchases from MacDougal Copy Center, 127 MacDougal Street (betw.
W3 & W4). Call before going: 212-460-8591. Almost all readings are
contained in the course reader. Others are accessible online, including
resources provided by key websites devoted to privacy.

Requirements and Grading Policy

Students
are expected to attend all classes and complete assigned readings prior to
class meetings. Grades for the course will be assessed according to three
criteria: participation (in-class and online), examination, and short essays. To pass the class, students pass each of
the three elements.

February 9:Anonymity and
Identifiability

Being
anonymous is, strictly speaking, to be unnamed. Anonymity is sometimes
considered an important aspect of privacy but it can also be dangerous. With
the advent of newtechnologies of identification,
anonymity may be increasingly difficult to achieve in an information age.

Assignment:
1) Decide whether anonymous postings should be allowed; 2) Is caller-ID a good
thing?

February 16:Surveillance and
Security

Video
surveillance is seen as the answer to much insecurity, especially in the wake
of terror and crime. The United Kingdom has embraced this technology with great
enthusiasm and, it appears, little public objection.

February 23:Databases

When computers came to serve not only as calculators but
as information processors, it was not long before their powers to store,
organize, manipulate and analyze information about people were exploited. In
many cases, the ends were good. But, worries of “big brother” were increasing
on people’s minds, along with a sense that something needed to be done to
control their proliferation and growth.

Assignment:
What do we mean by “public records?” Provide some examples.

Readings:

Summary and Recommendations
from Records, Computers, and the
Rights of Citizens.Report of
the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Automated Personal Data
Systems.U. S. Department of
Health, Education & Welfare.(Copyright by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1973).

Gandy, Oscar H.“Coming to Terms with the Panoptic
Sort.” Eds. David Lyon and Elia Zureik. Computers, Surveillance, and Privacy.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1996. 132-155.

March 1:Privacy in the Past
and Today

Some people argue that we have more privacy today than
every before. Others suggest that privacy advocates are misdirected in their
quest because people are no longer interested in privacy. If people do not
care, should they still, nevertheless, be protected?

Readings:

Gotlieb, Calvin C.“Privacy: A Concept Whose Time Has Come and Gone.” Eds. David Lyon
and Elia Zureik.Computers,
Surveillance, and Privacy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1996. 156-171.

Westin, Alan, “Social and
Political Dimensions of Privacy,” Journal of Social Issues, Vol59, No 2,
2003:431-453

March 8:Medical and Genetic
Privacy

Good
healthcare depends on a vast body of knowledge, including the knowledge physicians
and other caregivers have about individual patients. This information is stored
and used. It is of great value to the patients themselves and to society at
large – public health and research. But many people feel that information about
their health is sensitive and personal and should not be widely shared. Are
they right? Should there be restraints on what information is gathered and how
it is used? Should genetic information be treated in unique ways?

March 15:Recess

March 22:Privacy and Law

Guest
Lecturer: Gaia Bernstein

U.S. law
has grappled with both conceptual and normative privacy issues. Pulled in
opposite directions by those, on the one hand, who see privacy as a distinctive
value and on the other, by those who see it as a hodge-podge of more
fundamental values, the law reveals complexity and confusion in its commitment
to privacy. We examine various sources of legal protection for privacy, and
will consider some of both the skeptical and committed positions.

March 29:Philosophical
Conceptions of Privacy

What is privacy and why do we value it? These are the
basic questions philosophers have asked. The questions are important because
they provide reasons or justifications for heartfelt opinions on controversial
issues. We will see, however, why theorists and activists alike have found
privacy a challenging notion to grasp and defend. What interests and values
does privacy challenge and how do we settle important tradeoffs?

Readings:

Reiman, Jeffrey. “Driving to
the Panopticon: A Philosophical Exploration of the Risks to Privacy Posed
by the Highway Technology of the Future.” Santa Clara Computer and High Technology Law Journal. (Volume
11, Number 1: March 1995). 27-44.

Gavison, Ruth.“Privacy and the Limits of Law.”The
Yale Law Journal (Vol. 89, No. 3: January 1980)421-471.

Nissenbaum, Helen.“Protecting Privacy in an Information
Age: The Problem of Privacy in Public.”Law and Philosophy(Volume 17: 1998). 559-596.

April 5:Privacy, Communications and the
Media

We
sometimes take for granted the privacy of our communications. We can whisper,
pass notes, even send things in the mail, and expect them to remain secret.
What can we expect, hope, or demand of our new communications technologies,
from telephones to landlines to cell phones to email?

Assignment: Look into cases where investigative reporters
have gone too far, violating privacy in the quest for a story? Are there cases
of the opposite, timidity where aggressive pursuit and publication would have been
socially more beneficial?

Smolla,
Rodney A. “Privacy and the First Amendment Right to Gather News,” George Washington Law Review, June/August
1999, 1097

April 12:Online Privacy

The online
world offers protection from much of the scrutiny of physical interaction –
others can’t see or hear us. They may not know us. Yet online transaction has
become increasingly a source of betrayal of our habits and origins. How so? And
what should we do about it?

Readings:

Committee on the Internet in
the Evolving Information Infrastructure, (2001) The Internet’s Coming of Age, Report of the Computer Science
and Telecommunications Board. Chapter 1, pp. 1-5

April 19:Privacy and Efficiency

Critics of strong protection have argued that privacy
competes with other social values. Readings in this section make the case,
generally, for business efficiency as one of those countervailing values.